A total of around 110,000 sq ft of office space could now be established at the Wellington Place site in the west end of the city, with a third of that office space expected to be Grade-A quality.
MEPC, the firm behind the plans and responsible for developing the entire 22-acre site, has welcomed the news but insisted that it will not be “developing speculatively”.
The Leeds Council is hoping its decision to grant planning permission for numbers three and ten Wellington Place will help boost building activity across the city centre when economic conditions are more favourable.
Wellington Place’s managing director Andrew Barlow suggested that the plans demonstrate his organisation’s “commitment to the expansion of the site”.
“This decision has been made to enable us to ensure the continued success of Wellington Place and to be in a position to develop the two Grade-A office buildings when market conditions allow,” he added.
While plans for new developments in the city centre are on hold, there are still a number of Grade-A office space rental opportunities in Leeds, including at numbers two and seven Wellington Place.
MEPC’s portfolio is currently valued at more than £1 billion and the company recently sold the Benson House building in Leeds to Lancashire County Pension Fund for a price of £20 million.
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Editor’s notes: By 2023, the highly popular mixed-use scheme had grown to 12 commercial properties.
Tenants of the premium office buildings include law firm Irwin Mitchell, office space agent Savills, gambling company Bet Fair, the Ministry of Justice and flexible office space provider Regus.
Retail and leisure occupiers in the scheme include Cubo, Mad Frans, Sainburys and Veeno.
Seven of the buildings have some availability for Grade-A office space rental in Leeds city centre.
And Building 11&12 Wellington Place is set to be the most energy-efficient office building in Leeds when it completes in 2023.
The developers are targeting BREEAM ‘Outstanding’, EPC rating ‘A’ and an operational Net Zero Carbon rating. In April 2023, only 19,013 square feet of prime office space within the building that offers over 250,000 square feet of commercial space was available, following pre-let deals with Arup and Lloyds Banking Group.